This wall was stabilized with Fortress Carbon Kevlar grid straps after it began to move and crack. Painting shows just how good a proper repair can look.

We are the most experienced Fortress Carbon Fiber Stabilization leader in Northeast Ohio: Expert Basement Repair.

With over 21 years of home foundation repair experience and 16 years installing Fortress carbon fiber in the greater Cleveland area, we at (EBR) Expert Basement Repair will have the right solutions for your home basement and foundation problems. We utilize time tested repair methods as well as the latest proven repair innovations to make the right repair to your home with the right product for a competitive price. We are the CERTIFIEDFortress carbon fiber installer for Northeast Ohio. We’ve seen what works, what doesn’t, and we understand the reasons why… regarding virtually anything basement and foundation related. *Contact us for a site visit today. We’ll respond to you quickly and schedule an extensive evaluation of your problem to provide you with options and costs for repair. 1.440.543.1030

The carbon fiber wall support needs to tie to the house framing and the footer to completely secure the load of the wall. The Fortress Stabilization carbon fiber wall support system ties and stabilizies the top and the bottom of the wall. Every Fortress carbon installation is warranted against bottom shearing with our own patented product and also any top wall movement for the life of the structure with our own patented top wall anchor system.

Lowest price guarantee on any carbon fiber work! There are NO TRANSFER FEES with our Fortress warranties. A double lifetime transferable warranty for any carbon fiber installation is standard. (One issued from us and one from Fortress to back us up!) Your entire wall is warranted from top to bottom…including bottom wall shearing! Your wall will be anchored at the top and the bottom as required to insure a quality stabilization installation.

Fortress Stabilization Certified Installers are specifically trained in the techniques and methods of applying Fortress Carbon Fiber / Kevlar products and receive a high degree of training in composite strengthening for use in construction related applications.

We answer your questions: We also providefree question and answer advice for your home foundation and basement problems on www.allexperts.com. We have answered over 1500 questions and solved foundation problems from all over the USA and around the world in just a few years. Visit the link below:

EBR provides expert on site inspection, foundation repair, and foundation stabilization services. Be sure to see our informative articles “Key Services” in the left column. Do some reading on our site to learn more about your problem, all your options for repair, and the advantages and disadvantages of the repair products available in our marketplace. EBR carries every product out there to be sure we offer the right product for your particular problem and type of basement wall construction. Oh…and don’t worry! There is never any pressure to buy anything from us and you will never see a comissioned salesman from our company.

Our specialty is foundation stabilization and wall repair!

…and by the way, The BBB has given us an A+ rating, and we enjoy a great reputation on Angies list. Maybe that’s because some of our best people are military veterans !

Any wall that is experiencing top, bottom, or center wall movement needs to be stabilized or the wall could continue to move, breaching the structural integrity of your foundation. Fortress carbon fiber has been tested and approved by certified independent testing facilities to solve this problem. Fortress carbon fiber was one of the first wall stabilization products to be approved and used in residential applications and has a 17 year history of proven success, the longest in the industry. Fortress carbon fiber is the leader, best performing carbon fiber product with the longest installation history in the marketplace. Ask any independant structural engineer to compare our product to any competitors product and you will see that ours is preferred 9 times out of 10.

Most basement walls begin to crack and bow after 600 psi of wet soil (hydrostatic) pressure has built up against the basement walls. Properly installed, virtually all carbon fiber products are many times stronger than this. Fortress carbon/Kevlar grid straps are rated for 180,000 psi. The outside soil can never overcome this much strength. Our top and bottom wall anchors have also been engineered and tested to vastly exceed minimum strength requirements.

TOP WALL ANCHORING:

Typically when a home is constructed the builder includes top wall anchors in the construction. These anchors tie the house framing to the block wall along the length of the wall. Sometimes you can physically see these anchors sticking up through the sill plate from the block. When your wall has these anchors installed by the builder, the wall normally cannot move inward at the the top. Outside soil pressure usually cannot break this bond. Instead, hydrostatic pressure will cause buckling and cracking along the middle of the wall and often near the corners. For these homes, extra anchoring at the top is sometimes unnecessary. If the builder has not installed these anchors and the top of the wall is moving, Fortress offers a high-strength ( adjustable tension ) anchor solution. This patented top wall anchor far exceeds the strength requirements needed to stabilize any top wall movement.

BOTTOM WALL ANCHORING:

Bottom wall movement is normally seen once the bond strength of the cement holding the block together has been exceeded. The bottom block cannot move as it is locked in place by the concrete floor. The second block up will begin to move inward, usually when there is not enough house weight on the wall to resist outside pressure. If there is no discernible inward movement the bottom of the wall can easily be locked in place with the vertical carbon fiber strap overlapping the two blocks and carried all the way to the floor. Additional bottom wall strength is obtained by anchoring the carbon fiber grid strap into the floor with structural epoxy. The lower wall can additionally be anchored when there is no obvious movement and the wall has not shifted by installing patented Fortress carbon fiber staples into the very bottom block. Once there are signs of bottom wall shifting sometimes it is necessary to stop this movement with an engineered structural repair. Steel rod and high strength concrete is used to overlap the joint between the bottom and second block up from the bottom, effectively making them one continuous block. ( We have an engineered design for this repair) A trained and certified EBR representative can determine which of these options is appropriate for any particular situation.

There are two keys to a strong and lasting carbon fiber repair, the structural epoxy and proper installation. Fortress carbon fiber products are only available to professional installers whose employees have participated in extensive training, testing and who obtained their certification. Expert Basement Repair is certified by Fortress and we have more installation experience (16 years ) than any other company in this area. All of our repairs carry a lifetime transferable guarantee. You are also issued a separate lifetime transferable warranty that you send into Fortress. Your warranty information then goes into their database. Your repairs will be warranted regardless of the installing company….and best of all we will never send a commissioned salesperson to your home! Call us today if you have more questions.

Here’s an example of how you can be tricked by unscrupulous companies. The following was in our mail today…

This is an enquiry e-mail via http://www.expertbasementrepair.com/ from: Luke

Hi, hope all is well. I know you’re probably very busy so I’ll get straight to the point: I follow your site expertbasementrepair.com and really like what you do, so I really want to see your business take off. As a small business owner myself, I thought you would really benefit from something that worked tremendously well for me, attracting a ton of traffic and new customers. It’s this new thing called a “video testimonial.” In plain English, it’s basically a mini commercial for your biz, but you can write your own script, choose your own actor, and it’s pretty darn cheap for what you’re getting. I tried it out for my own biz and it turned out great. It’s like a review for your business but it looks like an actual customer did it, blogging about your product because they’re so satisfied with it. It’s the best business expenses and the best investment I’ve ever made, and you can try it out at http://www.buy-testimonials.org. Keep up the good work.

– Luke.

These companys are also using a very persuasive power point presentation in which they make claims about other competitiors which are not true, and some of their material is total fabricated. High ratings on the BBB can be…purchased. Spend a lot of money with them and you’ll get a high rating, regardless of complaints and lawsuits. They will also convince you with very powerful sales tricks to not even consider talking to any other company. They make a powerful arguement to sign up …today. Would you buy an expensive item item without shopping around ??? Give this some serious consideration!!! We high suggest : Please get another opinion…even if it’s not ours!!! If you’re being pressured to sign up today and not call anyone else …well, we warned you.

This is something we would never consider. There are, however, one or two companies in this area using this method of promotion. Please do your background homework on any company you are thinking about using, including us!

1 First check out the outside corners of the home foundation. Look for a vertical crack about 1′ from the corner. Look for the crack to be tuckpointed all the waydown. Even if the tuckpointing mortar is the same color of the rest of the wallthere should be no crack here. A crack in this location indicates the wall has snapped and has moved inward.

2 Inside the basement look for signs that new tuckpointing has been done on the walls. New tuckpointing always means the walls have cracked and been patched. Look for extra wide mortar joints …which mean the wall had come in a lot and have been tuckpointed to hide the movement. Fresh paint can’t hide an extra widemortar joint.

3 Look for signs that the floor tiles were or are loose. Leaking walls and waterproblems will pop the tiles loose and destroy them over time. Sometimes the perimeter tiles are replace to make a decorative band around the room. Be suspicious when you see this.

4 If the walls are covered try to look at the wall through the electric service box or gas service shut off line area or look in the utility room. Look for horizontal cracks or water stains at the bottom of the wall. Also look for white discoloration of wall paneling at the bottom or along the board seams. Broken and cracked basement walls are bad news, generally requiring a lot of money to fix them properly. Sometimes unscrupulous homesellers will hide foundation problems and not disclose any problems. They are hoping you won’t discover any problems until they are long gone. It’s in your best interest to learn all you can about some of these hidden basement problems. If in doubt bring in a basement expert! If you are in the greater Cleveland, Ohio region…bring us in!

Expert Basement Repair now has over 16 YEARS of carbon fiber installation experience as a certified installer. We introduced carbon fiber to the Cleveland market first! Over the years we’ve installed every brand of carbon fiber on the market. Here’s some helpful information regarding this relatively new, fantastic product:

Carbon fiber is strands of fiber made originally from Nylon fiber, then baked to 3000 degrees to change its chemical form to become a much stronger compound…carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is exceptionally strong for its size and weight. When the strands of carbon are woven or placed parallel with each other, they become exponentially stronger than many other materials. Fortress carbon fiber, with a cross weave of Kevlar, has been tested to be 10 times stronger than steel in a tension application, meaning being pushed, not compressed. The picture on the right shows Fortress carbon fiber being installed. The installation is ALWAYS non-invasive, 99.9% dust free and the structural epoxy adhesive contains no VOCs. You don’t need to leave the house !

Carbon fiber will not stretch and when it is bonded to a bare or properly prepared concrete surface and it will not delaminate or stretch once bonded to the wall or surface. When tested to failure Fortress carbon fiber endured a force ten times normally generated on a basement wall. See this video of the actual testing. http://expertbasementrepair.com/carbon-fiber-structural-integrity-video

Carbon fiber composites are as high-tech as you can get today. The new 757 Dreamliner aircraft, space shuttles, boat masts, racing bicycles, racing cars, bullet-proof vests are all made from this modern day miracle composite. Carbon fiber is frequently used for repairs to concrete bridges and commercial and industrial concrete structures. Carbon fiber has been used for more than 20 years by industry and recently has moved into residential repair and stabilization as the production costs have come down.

Fortress carbon fiber products now routinely replace Steel I beams, wall anchors, and grip-tite anchors for most cement block basement wall repairs. The advantages of carbon fiber over these older technologies is well documented, tested and proven…just ask any structural engineer.

A cracked and bowing basement wall is a real, potential future problem most of the time, depending on the severity of the damage. This damage is often an indication of a poor water drainage issue with expansive soil conditions outside the wall. If the condition is not corrected the wall will usually continue to crack, bow and move inward over time. The amount of time will vary greatly depending upon a variety of site and moisture conditions in the surrounding soils.

The following is additional information on most of the methods available to stabilize your wall and the average costs associated with them. Fortress carbon fiber stabilization does not require outside excavation to releive wall pressure:
To be clear, we are talking about CEMENT BLOCK WALLS. You must be sure the wall is being pushed inward and not settling. This inward movement generally results in a horizontal crack along the entire wall with stairstep cracking at the corners, and sometimes stair steeping on the adjacent walls. Vertical cracking from floor to ceiling, especially on two adjacent walls is usually settlement…where the foundation is allowing the wall to sink and settle. Carbon fiber is notdesigned to stabilize wall and foundation settlement. Proper failure analysis is critical for any successful long term repair. We also rebuild walls when damage and deterioration make repairs unlikely to be permenant. We have found masonry contractors unfamiliar with alternative repair methods will ALWAYS tell you the cracked or bowing wall must be replaced. With modern materials and technology this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Note: Spacing requirements of the methods described below will vary according to block thickness, wall height, backfill height and amount and type of wall damage.

Traditional wall stabilization almost always involved the installation of STEEL BEAMS. These beams were often bolted to the floor or set into the floor and cemented in place. They were then attached at the the top of the wall and then attached to the floor joists with framing. Be aware that not all size steel beams are strong enough to withstand hydrostatic soil pressure loads and sometimes undersized beams are installed to save the contractor money. With steel beams installed in your home you can expect to have a much harder time selling your home later. We do, however, install beams in some situations. Expect to pay $450-700.00 per beam.

ROD & GROUT stabilization was the next method to come along. STEEL REBAR is inserted into the wall and then cemented into place along the length of the rods.

There are many skill and knowledge factors required for this work that many installers are unaware of. The rods must be tied into the sill plate and extend below the floor. The grout has to be a specific mix. Rod positioning along the entire wall length is crucial. Simply sticking rebar in the wall and pumping in concrete does little for structural integrity if guidelines are not followed or understood. Generally, we see that those vendors who are not up to date and not familiar with all these products will generally not like any of the other repair methods listed here and suggest they can’t possibly work. We install Rod & Grout repair when absolutely necessary…most often for the shearing at very bottom of the wall.

Wall shearing stabilization requirements: $ 50.00-$100.00 per location along shear plain. This process adds thousands of pounds of extra weight onto your footing !If the soils under the footing are wet, the footing could break and cause foundation settlement.

STEEL WALL ANCHORS are a steel rod which passes through your block wall and is anchored into the soil outside in the yard. The hole in your wall is then patched, a 20″ steel plate is bolted to the rod inside on your basement wall , and tightened with a torque wrench. NOTE: These anchors required monthly manual tightening to maintain warranty . These are suggested repair / stabilization for solid poured concrete walls, but not block walls. We carry them. $450-$650.00 each. NOTE : you cannot drywall or cover these wall plates if they are to be maintained.

FULL WALL ANCHORS do the same thing as the anchors above but have a 6′ wall length wall plate mounted on the wall with a nut which requires monthly tightening. You can’t finish the walls when you have to tighten the anchor bolts monthly! The appearance of these anchors is almost as daunting as steel beams. We decided not to carry these. $550- $700.00 each.

CARBON / KEVLARcarbon fiber is the latest entry into the wall stabilization race, ( as of 15 years ago ). Carbon fiber has been tried, tested and proven to be 10 times stronger than steel beams. ( in tension, or “being pushed” ) NOTE: to see a carbon fiber test video, CLICK HERE.

Carbon fiber comes in three versions for basement walls. One version is a FABRIC CARBONFIBER MESH which is put on the walls as a large patch. Usually the patch is 2′-4′ long and covers the center of the wall. note : Often these units DO NOT address the higher hydrostatic pressures developed at the bottom two blocks of the wall because they are not long enough. Spacing seems to vary on these patches depending on the vendor. Long term adhesion to the wall has seen to be a problem in the Cleveland Ohio area with some companies. These patches also usually do not cover the top several horizontal rows of block, which are subject to frost breakage and movement. We carry this. Installed properly it is not cost competitive but may be required in certain repair scenarios.

CARBON FIBER SOLID PLATE is manufactured to withstand standard hydrostatic pressure but not differential movement / pressure as it is manufactured with the carbon strands aligned in one direction only. This product requires cleaning with Methyl Ethyl Keytone ( M.E.K.) before installation. This extra heavy design often doesn’t conform well to the bow and displacement of a bowed wall because it is so thick. It is also difficult to confirm 100% wall adheasion because you can’t see if all the air voids have been removed after it is installed. We carry this. $ 450-$700.00 each. Generally used for heavy duty commercial projects.

FORTRESS CARBON FIBER strength far exceeds any soil / hydrostatic pressure that could ever be developed. It is the most versatile of all the carbon products as it is woven with carbon fiber AND kevlar and is designed to address differential pressure movement as well as standard hydrostatic pressure. High strength structural adhesive epoxy bonds it to the wall and passes through its woven grid pattern to surround and encapsulate the entire strap. Any trapped air or voids can easily be visually identified and removed. There are no VOCs to worry about with this product installation.

Because your concrete walls must be fully prepared by grinding before any carbon fiber installtion EBR has chosen to utilize a Bosch HEPA VACUUM FILTRATION wall grinding system.This system will contain paint grinding dust much better than an inexpensive shop vacuum. This is important if you have asthma, are concrened with dust being spread all over or need to keep your furnace running during the basement work. Our wall grinding system / dust vacuum is the choice of MOLD and MILDEW remediation companies. It prevents 99.9%of any grinding dust from escaping into your homes air. We ONLY utilize the best possible equipment in your home.
* From an engineering design, performance and warranty point of view you must stabilize the entire wall length of a wall being repaired / stabilized. Contact us for more information. By the way…the owner is always on site for your installation!

Cracked and bowing walls problems are a major cause for concern as houses begin to age. More of a concern is the amount and degree of varying opinions from basement foundation repair companies. It seems the more companies you talk to the more the confusing the problem becomes. Everyone you talk with says their method is the best! Many foundation repair companies have not updated their industry knowledge or repair methods…and are still doing things the way they were done in the 60’s. There are obviously many different wall repair methods available today, but the key is to chose the right one for your particular problem. Any company which has only one method of repair available to solve your problem may not be the right people to do your work. ( many of these companies are locked into a franchise and can only sell one product )

Some companies will tell you if the wall is cracked and bowed it has to be replaced. In most cases these folks don’t have any knowledge of what modern repair techniques are capable of. These are the guys stuck in past. Working with these folks will end up costing you a lot more money than you probably needed to spend. 90% of the walls that these folk condemn are easily repairable and can be fully stabilized and warranted. As a rule: Only a masonry wall which has bowed more than 3-4″, or has sheared at the bottom and moved inward more than 3″, or has rotten concrete blocks needs to be replaced and rebuilt. With modern materials and techniques these walls can easily be stabilized and repaired. Once you realize your wall doesn’t have to be replaced you then need to understand the various repair methods. ( see our articles on the advantages and disadvantages of the following repair methods…Wall Anchors, Steel beams, Rod and grout, Epoxy injection and carbon fiber repair )

In a nutshell: Solid poured cracked walls usually require wall anchors to stabilize any wall movement and epoxy or polyurethane injection to repair the cracking.

Red Clay tile block walls require steel beams most of the time and carbon fiber less often.

Brick walls generally require steel beams and less often carbon will be utilized above the window and door lentils.

A standard cement block wall which has sheared at the bottom ( second block above the floor is moving inward ) should have the bottom shear repaired with rod & grout and the main wall stabilized with carbon fiber.

Note: Unless the carbon fiber fiber repair ( such as Fortress carbon fiber ) spans the entire height of the wall (from floor to ceiling) the wall is still subject to shearing at the bottom. Even though some companies will tell you you have a “stable wall”, if the bottom moves you will often find you have no warranty covering this!

Bottom line: With a knowledgable and experienced contractor you will spend less money, the job will be done much quicker and more efficiently, the work area will be kept cleaner and more organized…and costly surprises will not be in your future!

There are a few companies out there now promoting DIY carbon fiber installation kits. They make the process look really easy. I’m suggesting you give this a bit more thought before diving in.

One example video for DYI carbon fiber installation on the internet shows only a best possible case scenario. The wall is barely cracked, any bowing is not apparent, and the wall has no paint to deal with! Gee that looks so easy!
What will you do if you run into problems not addressed in the video…such as walls bowed more than an 1/2″? What if these are settlement cracks instead of hydrostatic pressure cracks? ( carbon fiber will not stabilize settlement problems ) How would you know? What if the walls are wet? What is the correct spacing for the block thickness, or is there any adjustment for backfill dirt height? What about reinforcing window openings? What about shearing at the bottom?…or the cracking near the top ? What about top wall anchoring if the wall is slipping at the top? What if the walls are painted? Carbon fiber will not bond well to paint! How do you get the paint off the walls? What if it’s lead paint? What about corner shearing ? Tuckpointing methods and materials? The epoxies used for this material set up quickly. You will not have a lot of time to waste installing it before it sets up. You must get it right the first time or you can have an expensive mess to deal with!

What kind of support are these people going to provide with their kit? What kind of warranty are you really getting…especially if you don’t get it exactly right? What will they do for you if the wall fails later or you have delamination?

The list goes on and on! Do you think you have all the correct tools, know how and ability to install your own carbon fiber, and get it right so there won’t be problems in the future? If so you are in the minority and I wish you the best of luck! Sometimes trying to save some money can end up costing you a lot more than just money! Think about it.Undecided 20 years experience…or try it yourself? Carbon fiber, even at DYI pricing is really expensive…if you don’t get it right.

This is a picture (click on image to enlarge) of a wall anchor and a Fortress carbon fiber grid strap. The reason both repair products are in this picture is that the wall anchors weren’t working very well and wall movement needed to be stopped. With a wet rainy spring last year the wall anchors had slipped inward through the wet clay soil. The wall had continued to bow inward in between the monthly required tightening maintenance on the anchor plates. The other problem was that the wall anchors had done nothing to prevent the bottom of the wall from shearing at the second from bottom block and sliding inward on two out of three walls. We removed the anchor plates long enough to install Fortress carbon fiber grids and then reinstalled the plates for a day until the carbon epoxy had fully cured.

The wall anchors are really better suited for installations on solid poured concrete walls. When these anchors are installed on cement block walls you are only addressing wall movement around the immediate area of the wall plate…four or five blocks, not stabilization of the top or bottom of the wall. There should not only be concerns with the wall shearing at the bottom block but concerns with punching shear, where the block actually snaps and breaks around the anchor plate when the anchor doesn’t slip. These are all problems related to “point loading”, which is anchoring a small amount of surface area on a wall in an attempt to stop the inward movement. When hydrostatic soil pressure is a major factor related to your inward wall movement you really need to give your choice of wall stabilization more consideration. You can even point load your wall when you install large “sheets” of carbon fiber fabric. Unless the fabric installations extend the full height of your wall… you are not addressing the area of the wall which has the highest amount of pressure on it…the very bottom of the wall where the second block up is not locked in by the floor, and you are not address the possibility of freeze break near the top of the wall. Because in this case the wall had sheared in several areas we had to compliment the carbon fiber installation with a rod and grout repair at the bottom of the wall in certain areas.

We suggest you do your homework before you spend your hard earned money. Ask tougher questions of the nice folks who come out to see you and see what kind of answers you get. If you know what kind of questions to ask and what to look for… it will be much more obvious which contractor you want making your repairs. It will be time and money well spent.

Jim: P.S. here’s another great site to learn more: www.basementquestions.com check them out when you’re done with us!

PROBLEM: A 5 year old home in Cleveland, Ohio developed a structural crack at the inside basement corner of the garage caused by hydrostatic pressure. The home owners required a strong repair which could be done from the inside. They did not want a steel beam or steel anchors installed at the corner. They also needed a lifetime warranty against any further movement or failure.

SOLUTION: Expert Basement Repair injected the crack with Fortress structural epoxy and then installed 4 preformed Fortress corner straps with 4′ extensions. The 4′ extensions overlapped each corner piece by almost 1′ creating a monolithic connection and permanent bond. With the corner now stabilized the happy owners will be able to go onward with their plans to remodel the basement. This repair will all but disappear once it is painted ! Contact www.expertbasementrepair.com for a free estimate in the greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio region.

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There are a few companies out there now promoting DIY carbon fiber installation kits. They make the process look really easy. I’m suggesting you give this a bit more thought before diving in. One example video for DYI carbon fiber installation on the internet shows only a best possible case scenario. The wall is barely […]

This is a picture (click on image to enlarge) of a wall anchor and a Fortress carbon fiber grid strap. The reason both repair products are in this picture is that the wall anchors weren’t working very well and wall movement needed to be stopped. With a wet rainy spring last year the wall anchors […]

PROBLEM: A 5 year old home in Cleveland, Ohio developed a structural crack at the inside basement corner of the garage caused by hydrostatic pressure. The home owners required a strong repair which could be done from the inside. They did not want a steel beam or steel anchors installed at the corner. They also […]